The music is starting and they are already on the dance floor.
For an old
"sitter-outer" like me, watching the steps and trying to figure them
out is
a challenge. Only thing is, this music is the political tunes being
played
for the upcoming national elections and the dancers are the politicians
vying for our vote.
The Congressional dancers are doing the same old two-step. Be they
Democrats or Republicans it is the same old stuff with one outstanding
exception. A bold Republican Representative, House Resources Chairman
Pombo
is doing everything from tangos to square dances; but his Senate partners in
both parties can't keep up so they find him embarrassing. He gets
legislation to amend the Endangered Species Act and the Senators on both
sides of the aisle hide under their desks. He tries to set the
called-for
acceptable limits on incidental porpoise take in tuna nets and radical
groups open an office in his District and work with Republicans and
Democrats to defeat him in a primary or in the general election. Thus
far
their slanders and attacks on this open and determined champion have just
fizzled and popped like rockets fueled with coal.
The real news is what the Administration is doing. If you have read much
of
my recent scribbling you will recognize my claim that there are no
dependable opponents of all the environmental and animal rights' radical
agendas. Being blunt about it, nearly all politicians of the Left and
the
Democratic Party Platform advocate and implement the agenda of the
environmentalists and their animal rights cohorts. Likewise, many
politicians of the Right support those agendas much of the time but
particularly when an election is coming up, they join their Leftist
counterparts in hailing ever "more" for the environment and animals.
What
better vote-getter than a picture with a puppy or standing in front of some
magnificent landscape? The recent White House (and their associated
Federal
agencies) behavior certainly bears out this observation. Here is a
description of the White House dance, it goes "One Forward, One Sideways,
and Five Back. Repeat?"
(One) Forward:
The Administration has sought operational animal damage control authority to
conduct controls on problem animals and animal populations in Wilderness
Areas. Good for them. Between wolves and grizzly bear population
explosions, the protection of same under the Endangered Species Act, and the
mounting destruction of livestock, big game and work animals like dogs this
is vastly needed. Add in the ever-present problems from coyotes and the
continuing explosion of cougar populations and range and protection and it
may be too little, too late but welcome nonetheless.
(One) Sideways:
The "new" Executive Order on the Taking of Property by Government
while
appearing positive at first is now questionable when careful reading
indicates that the use of the term "private property" may include
BOTH real
(immovable) and personal (all other) property. If so, the government
might
well be establishing either knowingly or to be determined later by some
court or "justice" government ownership where none existed before.
If
anyone doubts this concern, start reading up on how recent "anti-human
cloning laws in a growing number of states are actually paid for and
sponsored by pro-cloning wordsmiths to ALLOW human cloning. The jury is
out
on this E.O. on Taking but so is my judgment as to whether it is a
"Forward"
or "Back" step.
(Five) Back:
1. National Park Service Policy Revisions have
been "called back" by
the new Interior Secretary to reestablish "Conservation" as NPS
priority #1.
Translation the Park Service is to remain the anti-natural resource
management and use bastion of a moribund Federal bureaucracy.
2. A NW Hawaiian Islands Marine Sanctuary
"more than 100 times larger
than Yellowstone" was just declared. While touting
"conservation", buried
in the "Declaration" is a provision that all fishing must cease in 5
years.
It will never reopen without a fight and who will "fight"?
Like whales and
all other marine mammals that are treated as "untouchable" by our
current
laws, this "sanctuary" will be a "temple" in the new
religion. "Management"
( translation: closure enforcement) is being given to NOAA who
simultaneously announced a $600,000 grant to The Nature Conservancy to
"protect aquatic species" and "restore critical marine
habitats". Who for,
National Geographic? Speaking of TNC -
3. The new Treasury Secretary is a very rich
environmental activist and
former executive of TNC. Anyone who does not see the danger to the rest
of
us that this represents, well there is not enough space in this short
article to begin to explain it.
4. US participation in the current UN anti-gun
push. The
Administration should make it crystal and perfectly clear that under NO
CIRCUMSTANCES will the US sign ANY Convention or Treaty on this matter.
A
pledge of support to control arms traffic is one thing, a signed and
ratified (by the US) UN document will, like the UN CITES document provided
the basis for the ESA (taking without compensation, seizure of State
Constitutional authority, etc.) provide the legal foundation to supersede
the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution. If the US Supreme Court can
say
the Geneva Convention covers "terrorists" when they are and were
specifically excluded and the ESA continues to grow and infect every part of
national life, how tough is it to say "We will not sign ANY document that
jeopardizes the gun rights of American citizens in any way or in any
potentially interpreted way"?
5. Last but certainly not least. Only four
hours ago I was notified
that the "final and complete" Endangered Species Regulations have
been
"pulled back". Like Back-Step #1 above re: NPS a set of
regulations that
have never (35+ years) been completed have been completed. Reportedly
they
are "better" than any of us have a right to expect. How that
could happen
is honestly beyond me but even an old pessimist like me is not to be
disappointed. The proposed regs have been withdrawn in order to have
"Listening Meetings" and "Consultations" "Around the
Country". Listen to
who? Consult with who? What "country" when it is being
steadily
transformed from a Republic with Constitutional guarantees into a centrally
managed fiefdom run by bureaucrats and radicals? In fact, the regs are
being disposed of right before our eyes but like people killed by wolves and
grizzly bears and cougars, since we believed the whoppers that they
"never"
do such things telling us the proposed regs never existed and expecting
agreement seems reasonable. Besides, more "Input" will
certainly improve
the product, won't it?
There you have it. The music will only increase over the next 4 months
and
more dancers will be sweeping the floor. However, finding partners and
tunes pleasant to our ears is neither guaranteed nor, it appears, likely.
Like the baseball fan kid said to "shoeless" Joe Jackson after the
Black Sox
Scandal we can only intone, "say it isn't so".
Jim Beers
29 June 2006
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